Priming woes

Now that it's settled and I've decided to avoid washes and inks and just go with the three-color method from here on out, I was eager to prime some more figures and get to it.

I decided to try some brush on primer since spraying can be something of a mess. I had bad luck with the Humbrol #33 enamel paint I used previously: it was so old I couldn't get it to mix. So I decided to try to a flat black enamel paint from the hardware store.

It mixed up easily but stunk to high heaven. I wore a mask and opened the sliding glass door, but I still got tremendous headache that lasted about 24 hours. At first the enamel paint went on too thickly. So I cut it with the Gamsol thinner I had. For some reason the thinned paint dried shiny!

Oh, well. Into the paint stripper. Sadly, my old stripper of choice Dawn Power Dissolver has been discontinued. I ended up buying some industrial strength Simple Green. Soon they are going to know me on a first name basis down at the local hardware store.

After that fail, I decided to go back to spray primer so I bought another can of Duplicolor primer. My first go with it I had difficulty getting it to spray into the harder to reach areas. I had done the obvious thing and placed my figures on a cardboard box outside to spray them. Upon further research I found this interesting video tutorial on priming. So I decided to give it a go - with a mask, unlike that yahoo.

I bought a 36" piece of 5/8" square poplar and cut it into 12" sections. Now I can blue-tac my figures onto the end and spray away at them from almost any odd angle.

I've made one modification since I took these photos. The blue-tac didn't stick so well to the porous, rough-cut wood at the ends of the sticks. So I've nailed on some polycarbonate furniture disks to give the blue-tac something to stick to. Last thing I need is a freshly primed figure taking a dive into the dirt...

Dark Age house test wall (part 3)

It took a while for my to source some balsa, but I'm liking it better than liberated coffee stirrers for the bracing on the new test wall. It cuts more easily, it takes texture better, and it looks more true to scale. 

I bought 3" x 1/16" x 36" balsa sheets and trimmed them to size. I cut it into more manageable 12" sections as soon as I got it home. I'm a big fan of the Alumicutter ruler, but it's still harder than I thought to keep the cuts straight. Might invest in a stripper if I keep this type of work up.

Went with balsa sheets and cut to size

Basic structure in place

Didn't fancy the last carved foam door, so went with balsa

Didn't want foam showing by the door jam, so cut in some shims

Close up of the knotty door and jam

Jazzy door pull courtesy of the wife's jewelry making supplies

Close-up of the door & pull

After two coats of dilute black craft acrylic

I'm thinking I should use 1/8" balsa (2x thickness) at the corners and door jam. Basically anywhere you can see two sides of the wood. Guess we'll find out when I attach another wall to this puppy!

That's all for now. Looking forward to dry brushing this one up.

Dark Age house test wall (part 1)

Made some progress on the test wall this week.

It started off as a sheet of Elmer's foam core board. I peeled the paper off of one side so I could give it some texture. That was rather a pain. Maybe I will try wetting the paper with water (or Windex) next time as others suggest.

Then I used an el cheapo wire brush assortment to give a rough, vaguely swirly texture to the walls in a effort to make it look like wattle and daub. I may even try to carve in some detail of wattle poking through.

Next up was cutting up some coffee stirrers to use as wood beams. I worry these may be a bit to wide to be realistic, but that's why we do things like test walls, right?

The building I'm basing this on doesn't have a door on the end wall, but again, this being a test I might as well test doors too. This one was made by scribing the foam with a mechanical pencil. The horizontal boards on the door are cut from business card.  The door jams are an attempt to cut down the too-wide coffee stirrers. Kind of hard to control how wide they will be when cutting with the grain, but I think that adds to their Dark Age charm.

The whole door was cut out from the wall and then recessed slightly. Probably not necessary with the wood frame but again: test, test, test!

Marching Fort corner (part 1)

I was unsatisfied with cutting the the pink foam with the coping saw, so I went by the hardware store near work during lunch and scored one of these beauties. Night and day, hands-down a better tool for the job.

Last night I did some sketching and tonight I cut the foam for a corner section. I was amazed at how much more precise the cuts were. I was ready to build Troy out of pink foam!  =]

The cut below was a little rough. Not sure if my technique was off or if there is actually a grain to this stuff?

I guess a square corner section might make more sense, but the only big plywood bases I had were rectangular. Meh... 

Marching Fort wall section (part 5)

So I've textures the fence a bit with a wire brush and primed it black. I read somewhere that most tree trunks are grey (not brown), so we'll see how the dry brushing goes. I might to a couple of test "logs" to try out different color palettes.

The ancient Elmer's wood glue was a bit lumpier than I'd hoped. Hopefully it will be less noticeable with some matte varnish.

Priming the White Pumice was a royal pain in the ass! There were a bazillion tiny crevices and craters that were next to impossible to get paint down into. I tried a dilute wash. I tried a full strength, goopy-latex coat. I even made my own "stippler" brush by cutting down a rather stiff, synthetic #1 brush. Each time I looked I would find new, sparkly, white dots twinkling back at me. Argh!!!

Next time I might use a latex paint/PVA mixture for the first pass. Maybe the PVA will provide some gap filling? Or mix the paint in with the pumice first. I'm using cheap craft paint so I'm not too worried about the expense. Or I could just skip the pumice...

Anyone out there had this experience?

Marching Fort wall section (part 4)

I'd bought some Vallejo white pumice a while back with the intention of using it for basing. Upon further research, many people find it to be too messy for basing. So I stuck to Gareson's method.

However, I felt like I shouldn't let the pumice go to waste and decided to give it a go on the earth berms of the fort section.

As expected, it was a bit of a nuisance. I used a wet craft stick too apply and it was hard to get it on evenly and without the odd bit poking up like meringue. I'm pretty pleased with the texture though.

Here's the back of it done. Have to admit this side is looking more like a concrete bunker than an earth berm, but hopefully some paint and flocking will sort that out...

Marching Fort wall section (part 2)

And now for something completely tedious. Pointing the bamboo BBQ skewer 'logs.'

Actually it wasn't so bad once I got into a groove. It was kind of meditative actually.

A couple of pointers (no pun intended):

• I wanted to use the pencil sharpener to make the points, but because of the grain of the bamboo it tended to splinter the skewer. Whittling with the X-Acto worked better.

• Point the stake before cutting to length. Because when whittling, as Maury the Mohel says, "sometimes a little extra comes off the top."

Another issue with the bamboo skewers is that they each seem to have a dark and light side (don't we all!). The dark side was quite a bit tougher than the light side. This tended to make my points lean in one direction. I don't think that will be noticeable when all is said and done though.

Once they were shoved about a quarter inch into a slot I carved into the pink foam with  the X-Acto, the next step was to glue a cross beam across the top of the fence. The picture shows two beams, but the lower is just there to make sure the binder clips had a good purchase.

Marching Fort wall section

So here I've gotten down to the first terrain project. Pink foam cut and glued to a plywood base with Gorilla glue. I used a very fine hacksaw I found amongst my wife's jewelry making kit. Not sure if it was the best choice but hopefully it will lend an 'earthy' texture to the cuts.

Clever planning!

Tools of the trade

First time using Gorilla glue

Gluing on the wee berm

Had to trim off a little excess glue

Finished step one!

My Warchest

I finally broke down and ordered one of Sally 4th's Warchests. The shipping to the States was a turn-off, but since they used one of my ideas I kind of felt like I had to get one.  It arrived with no instructions. They haven't put those together yet according to the kind bloke that answered my emails. He was very helpful though and answered all my daft questions as I'd never messed about with MDF before.

I'd seen Legos used to square up miniature construction projects in an issue of Wargames Illustrated. I couldn't seem to track down any Legos, so I used some of my daughter's alphabet blocks instead.

The guy from Sally 4th recommended rubber bands to hold things together while the glue set. I only had one big enough to round the whole thing though.

Here's the finished storage box with the 25mm insert and the Perspex lid. The latter being my idea.  =]

Here is my numerically unimpressive levy force going for a ride. I gave the box a bit of a tumble and shake to see how well the insert did at keeping the figures standing upright.

For the most part it did a fine job. It won't take a serious jostling, but as long as one is relatively careful I think it will do just fine. One of the figures repeatedly had issues though. The levy laboriously painted has a cape that is rather large and windblown. I think this raises his center of gravity too much and makes him prone to falling over.

I ordered the 2mm thick insert and in hindsight I probably should have gotten the 3mm one.  I'm tempted to order another 2mm and plop it on top of the current one. The shipping one one insert would be ludicrous though. I may see what I can jury rig on my own. There is that 3D printer at my new job...

My new teeny-tiny brush

Well, I've read that sizes vary from one brush maker to the next. I guess I've got a good example on my hands here.

I've written previously that I felt like I needed something smaller than my Rosemary & Co. 3/0 spotter. Since that's the smallest she makes in that line I went with a Da Vinci 5/0 extra short spotter that I found on Amazon. It's a pretty dramatic difference visually:

The picture was taken under the 6x magnifier lens on my old man lamp. Part of the difference may be due to the Da Vinci being an 'extra short' brush and thus missing much of the 'belly' that the Rosemary & Co has in spades. I'll try them out tonight and see what I think, but I suspect I may still something in between.

EDIT: In order to present a more 'apples to apples' comparison, I cleaned and pointed both brushes. Here's the after shot:

So Much for the Bristles

Well, I knew something was off. For some reason I preferred my synthetic bristle Army Painter "Hobby" brush (that came thrown in with the starter paint set) over the fancy sable hair "Wargamer" brushes. I just couldn't seem to get the paint where I wanted to with the Wargamer brushes.

After a quick inspection and some googling, I found out why that is the case. I had washed all the brushes in hot water. Evidently that's not good for sable. I guess the little critters don't encounter too much hot water out in the wild. Here's what my "points" look like:

I ordered some brush cleaner and conditioner. It's probably too late for these, but it will help my next batch of brushes. Luckily they didn't cost that much, so it won't sting too badly to replace them.

In the plus column, I did finish all of my color blocking tonight for my three test case Scots levy.

Not too shabby considering this was my first attempt and my brushes were fubar.

Flash Flash and more Flash

I've begun the task of cleaning up the Gripping Beast levy blister pack. Plenty of cleaning up to do too. Mostly little bits of flash like under this bloke's arm:

I pray to both Wōden and the Nailed God that I get better at finding and removing this stuff. I thought I had the first set of four figures all shipshape and ready for priming. Fortunately I waited for my new eye to arrive before beginning to paint, because I found I had missed quite a bit. And then after I primed them I found I had missed a bit more. And then when I painted their tunics I found I had missed still more. Cheeky bastards...

I guess the moral of the story is to be patient and methodical. Boring as it might seem, I'm going to start doing all the similar figures at the same time. This way I'll get familiar with where the flash lines may lurk by repetition. Here's one of the guys all cleaned up. Or at least so he seems. Until he gets some paint on him!

The astute reader will note the copious amounts of mind-besotting lead dust about him.

The file I had ordered turned out to be way too big for these wee men.  I hadn't the time or patience to order another from Amazon (as I tend to do for most things since I'm a Prime member - quite the trap they've set!). So I struck out one evening to find a proper set of needle files. Hobby Lobby is the local big box place and they are open later than the smaller hobby shops. However, they didn't have needle files. They did have these cool little sanding needles though. I like them a lot as the pointy tip is great for getting into hard to reach places. I seem to burning through them at an alarming rate though and they are not exactly cheap. Maybe I need a lighter touch. Or maybe I need some needle files still. I do like the fact that the sanding needles wear out before the figure does. I'm afraid with a regular rasp file I might get over zealous. More things to experiment with.

My Kit

While I waited for all my SAGA stuffs from various parts of the world, I had plenty of time to piece together a suitable workspace and the appropriate tools.

My workspace has an additional constraint: it needs to be a portable affair. Our current domicile just isn't large enough to offer a dedicated space and leaving it on the dining room table will not please the wife or keep my four year old daughter away from potential harm (to herself and/or my minis).

After much agonizing and googling, I opted for some bargain-basement plastic organizer bins from the local branch of the Chinese Home Depot. I debated a tiered ArtBin or a fancy, metal toolbox, but in the end I settled on the narrow, organizer bins because they could be arranged around my workspace and keep everything at arms reach.

The bin on the left has all my basing supplies. The top bin has paints, empty bottles, and some metal figures I have not yet started on. The right-hand bin has a smaller organizer within for brushes, files, etc. As well as a chunk of "pluck & pull" foam for holding WIP miniatures.

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with how it worked out. And it all stores away neatly atop a bookcase (out of reach of curious little fingers).